DIE TRYING [A Roguelite Extraction LitRPG]

Selena really wanted ten rabbit legs roasted over a fire. Perhaps served with a side of Adjuta potatoes to absorb the excess oils. The kind of dish that her estate's servants would often cook up when her flight returned from a successful contract. She quickly wiped the drool from her mouth before anyone noticed, and stood ramrod straight again as people shuffled around in the market ahead.

Her day had started off poorly and only got worse with each hour. As usual, she woke early and meditated at her estate grounds, watching as Azula's Comet began its daily journey within the sunrings. She always liked watching the dim rings go from faint silver moonlight to actual full radiance, inch by inch as the comet diligently dragged the trapped bundle of sunlight behind it.

By the time she dressed in her armor and made her way down to the market, the light had fully returned to this side of the sunring, slowly starting to melt the winter snow from yesterday's night cycle.

Unfortunately, even when the comet passed the halfway mark above the sky, she still hadn't secured a single contract. No aid requests either. Not even a simple courier contract was offered, although she wouldn't have expected such a mission to be assigned to a paladin.

This wasn't the first time she'd daydreamed about better food and once more she was waiting for someone to hire her flight's services, praying that it might be the last day she'd have that daydream. At least her armor kept her warm in the chilly air.

She knew she was terrible at marketing, but even the merchants there knew it was odd for a moonwing paladin to appear in person, offering contract options instead of a typical flight's servants. And the few times she'd been approached, they'd outright ran off the moment she was forced to admit herself as a paladin-in-training. But it was either she appear herself to market her Flight's abilities, or no one would.

Pretty soon, the markets started to clear out with stalls folding up for the day and Selena started on her way back home. The empty coin purse on her belt weighed heavier than a full one ever could.

A pair of paladins from Flight Aldari passed her by on their way to the stagecoaches. Their own armor pristine and decorated with the latest fashions clearly preparing to set off with merchants for a mercenary contract or another. The taller one's eyes lingered on Selena's own armor.

She decided to start first before they could continue to gawk at her. "Good morning to you, Ser Aldari."

"Having a walk home?" He asked in the most blunt manner possible. The other snickered.

"A walk does wonders to help the calm the mind." She answered cordially back. "It is good to stop and appreciate the small things in life."

"Quite understandable, when one only has small things left in life." The answer came back.

She felt the heat on her cheeks and tried her best to force her feathers not to puff out in anger. She was the heir of Flight Nightreaver, she had to be above this low-browed trade of insults. If they wished to be low, that was a reflection on their character rather than hers. Her mother would have told her the very same thing, whenever others had been crass or petty to her in the past.

She gave them a deep hmph, turned her nose away and walked off.

They both started cracking up, passing her by, not bothering to even give her the expected farewell courtesy. Technically, they didn't need to, she was a paladin-in-training, not a full fledged paladin.

She'd passed by a few other paladins from seperate flights, however at this part of the trek, all of them were leaping and soaring through the air from drifting rock to rock with astral wings while she walked too far down on the ground for notice. She tried to remain under the cover of trees, and move only when there wasn't anyone in the air, too embarrassed to be seen. It couldn't be helped. Selena couldn't afford to waste mana on frivolous things like flying when walking would get her home all the same without any wasted energy.

Carefully, she made it back to her estate grounds without being seen. There, she found the remains of a war waged while she was gone.

Squirrels scattered as she opened the rusting gateway, all of the pests leaving behind the wreckage of her latest attempt at gardening. Half-eaten carrot and cabbage sprouts littered the ground, weeks of careful tending destroyed in a single morning.

Selena uttered a few unladylike curses, swallowed a few screams of frustration, and stopped herself from running straight into the garden. It was too late now. But she swore if she ever saw a squirrel in stabbing range, it would be today's lunch. Mostly she was upset at herself.

A ward would have prevented this. But wards cost mana crystals, and mana crystals cost coin, and she was running low on both.

The thought of going to others for gardening advice crossed her mind again. They'd help, of course. For a price. She was a paladin-in-training to those who knew how Flights worked. But to the rest of the world, they'd see her as a proper paladin. Which meant a markup on all prices. Moonwing elves were still mercenaries at heart. Everything had a price, as was proper. And if there was someone rich walking in their midst, the price would be all that much more important. Didn't matter if it was their own kind or another, rich was rich.

She looked down at the ruined sprouts and wondered if it wouldn't be less painful to just admit defeat. She still had three spears left in the armory, one could be sold.

No. Not yet. Plenty she could do before it got to that point. She brought both hands up and slapped her face lightly a few times, warming up and mentally picking herself back up.

A look further into the garden showed her the plants themselves weren't completely dead, only picked clean. Many remained buried, just the leaves nibbled at. All she had to do was keep watering and tending to them, and she'd have some food. Maybe next month. She felt her stomach growl. At least her estate's built in facilities included water from her ancestor's prior good groundwork. A windmill stored up energy, and once there was enough, she could have it drag water all the way up here. No mana needed to make any of it move.

Everything was fine, so long as she was diligent in getting a few buckets up to the garden here, it'll work out. Selena looked over three weeks of effort, and nodded to herself. "The lesson has been judged and learned. At the three week mark, it's worth triggering wards against pests."

She gave a small bow as thanks to her ruthless teachers, the squirrels, and planned to murder them all next time they tried to teach her this lesson. Tomorrow, she'd daydream about roasted squirrel instead of rabbit.

The winter cycle was really limiting what kind of crops she could grow, as she'd learned all the local berries and corn did not grow in the snow well. But the soil here should be plenty fertile, and her progress wasn't erased, only half-eaten.

The amount of snow from last night had grown, and the prior day cycle hadn't been warm enough to melt it all, key signs that they hadn't yet broken past the halfway mark on this winter cycle, so planting summer crops would be a waste. She personally preferred the cold, her armor would insulate a little too well during summer cycles. But first, she'd get into more comfortable clothing and then get to work on all this.

Her estate's armory loomed ahead as she stalked through the quiet hallways. She walked into her corner and her fingers began the familiar ritual of undoing straps and latches. The gorget came off first, then pauldrons, vambraces following after. She carefully set each piece on the stand.

When she reached for the cuirass straps, her fingers hesitated. The leather had worn through again where it hung loose, despite her attempts to cut new holes into them for a tighter fit. The armor shifted against her shoulders, rattling with gaps that shouldn't exist. That got a tut from her. She'd noticed it was getting loose, but now it was a real problem. And worse, there was no way to punch a new hole in these. It was already as tight as it could be and there wasn't any extra leather to punch a hole into.

She lifted the breastplate free after, holding it at arm's length to inspect the issues. Her mother had cut an impressive figure in this armor. Selena remembered watching her train, the metal moving like a second skin. Something it no longer did on her own figure.

Padding would help fill the gaps for herself, make the armor functional again, and keep her spine feathers from being messed further apart under it all.

…

Was she some child playing pretend paladin trying to fit into a real paladin's armor? Absolutely not. She just needed a better diet and regain some weight. The math came back up in her mind, calculating where she could get funding and move things around. There might be a vase or two she could take to market and swap for a few more coins. If the garden plan wasn't going to pan out in time…

A few curses came out of her mouth, but she had nobody to apologize to. Unladylike behavior such as this was at least a minor perk of being alone.

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For today, she had to abandon her prior plans on working through the library to uncover any combat manuals left behind that would further her paladin training, since the garden was now the ruins of a battlefield. It took most of the day to fix that up. If she had trained with a bow, she would have gone hunting down a few squirrels for a meal and revenge. As it was, a spear made a poor weapon to hunt with.

Work complete for the day, she retreated back to the inner courtyard and took a long bath in the dim light. Her feathers were getting soaked now, a sign that they weren't oiled anymore. She'd been putting off self-care for a while and it really couldn't be avoided. It was time.

The mirror in her personal quarters showed her exactly what she'd seen day after day. Despite everything, it was still her.

Her pin feathers were growing too noticeable, she could see the little white specs still sealed up, like white dots among her reflective blue face feathers. That was embarrassing. A few were hiding in her hair, longer but less noticeable given her blond hair.

Selena sighed, turned and locked the door behind her. The estate was empty, but she was still embarrassed having to do this even a year after her flight's fall from grace.

Out came a small bottle of oil, still half full. It was the only thing she hadn't needed to worry about buying more of. In the quiet room with only her reflection, she began to pick away at the new feather growth, crushing the pins under her finger, freeing the baby feathers.

It was humiliating.

Every pinch made her feel like more like a social reject. This was something that was meant to be done as a group, with her best friends, family, or a partner here with her. They'd all be happily picking at each other, applying oil, socializing. This room should have been filled with laughter, small talk, gossip, and anything in between.

Instead, it was only Selena, quietly picking away at her feathers, then rubbing the bare minimum oil needed on them to keep it all shiny. She didn't bother trying to fix up her spine feathers, not only could she not reach them easily, she already knew those had been ripped apart past the point of repair. And she didn't want to waste mana healing them either, not when there was nobody that would ever see them.

She should be putting more time and care into this, but the longer she stayed here handling her self-care the more depressed it made her feel. Today, she left the job half done. Her hair feathers didn't really need to be oiled up, right? Just a splash of blue paint over the tips to keep her identity going, a few quick brushes through her hair to keep it from looking like a rat's nest, keep it in a ponytail and that would look sharp enough for society at large. The rest of her pin feathers on the sides of her cheeks were too small to be seen at a distance anyhow, she could wait a week or two before they got noticeable again.

The mirror watched her quickly pack away the grooming items and escape the all too silent room.

With that utterly mortifying reminder of her situation, she went to the kitchen to see about eating at least something for the day finally, before going to sleep. There was some flatbread leftover from a week prior when she'd bought it, and she'd been slowly rationing it. If the garden project could work out, she could splurge a bit more and buy some healthier optio-

Ah. The bread was gone. The cupboard before her was empty. She'd eaten the bread.

Right. Yesterday night. She'd gotten too hungry, woke up, feasted upon it, and then went to bed half-asleep already.

She still had the hard rations, three days worth. They were deep in storage, the only ones she'd refused to eat. She'd told herself she'd only take those when she landed a contract and needed the fuel to fight.

"Mother would know how to make this work..." She muttered, staring at the empty pantry, then sighed. "… there's always water."

So she got herself a cup instead, picking out one of the multiple dozens of glass cups. She'd need to dust this out soon. The library still needed to be handled this month, so she'd start on the kitchen next month. By then, it would actually need the deep dusting. She knew it was a losing battle in the end, an estate this big needed a full staff of maids and butlers to handle the cleaning. It wasn't like she could afford to keep anyone on retainer duty.

The hearth by the long dining tables were only embers as of now, but one log into it and a bit of tending to, the fire came back. She could help it out with a quick spell, but Selena knew she'd need every scrap of mana she could hold onto for when she finally got a contract. Crystals were expensive, mining them was dangerous work.

Besides, the fire had only needed a little bit of fuel, and it would rekindle itself. She took a moment to huddle next to it, warming up. "You should tell me how you do it, ser fire."

But the fire said nothing other than the snap of wood. No secrets on returning from mere embers were shared.

This winter cycle was a little longer than the last one. People kept saying it was a sign that Azula's comet was growing weaker each time the cycles lasted longer, or slowly breaking apart. But she'd never felt like that was actually happening. Every winter thus far had ended at some point or another.

It was just a string of bad luck that they happened to last longer than the prior one.

Selena had a personal theory that the comet was taking breaks, jogging instead of sprinting every now and then to keep itself going, but such thoughts were rather silly childish ideas about how celestial objects moved. Only the goddess Nox and her kin knew how the comet really functioned.

She clapped her cheeks again to knock her out of her daze, got back up and set a small kettle on top to heat up water. It took a few minutes, so she took out her satchel and opened up the little sketchbook to the page she'd been working on prior. Drawing was strictly considered a male profession, and a paladin-in-training of her heritage shouldn't even be touching a pencil for any other reason than to fill out reports, male or not. But nobody was here to judge her for it and the sound of pencil on paper always made her feel a little bit happy.

She wasn't very good at it either. No matter how many times she erased and tried again, she never got it to look right or even good enough. And there wasn't anyone she could ask for training, not without rumors starting to spread. Maybe if she passed the trials and went from paladin-in-training to a fully fledged paladin, she would have the authority to do whatever she wished. Her seniors had always seemed invincible. At least until they proved themselves very much mortal.

For five minutes, she doodled, erased, then redrew, letting the sound of pencil on paper calm her down. She could do this. Anyday she'd land a big contract, finally prove her worth, and then the contracts would start raining down on her. She'd be able to hire a full paladin to complete her training, and then restore the flight back to it's prior glory.

Before they all left on that final doomed mission, she had advanced enough in her training to start on some of her flight's secret techniques. Not all of them, but she'd practiced enough. If she kept at it each day… it only took one win to turn her fortune around. It could even be tomorrow. She'd be the youngest Flight leader in history, and prove even an elf that was twenty true cycles could do just as much as one in their hundreds. She had to believe and keep working until it happened. The honor of her flight and their memory was at stake.

Her stomach rumbled again, and she tossed some tea leaves into the kettle, letting it simmer for a minute before her lunch was ready. The mild warm vapors… did little to cut her hunger down. She wasn't a tea fanatic either, not like most of her Flight had been, but plain water was getting really difficult to keep eating for dinner and the one thing she seemed to never run out of was tea. On her next sip, she had a spear in her hand instead of the cup. She also wasn't at her table anymore. The sketchbook was gone, as was just about everything else.

As was her leisurewear.

In fact, when she looked down she saw her the full harness of her mother's armor, polished and oiled to perfection. On her belt was the last mana crystal she'd owned and rationed, which she always kept well hidden under her pillow. And the bandolier carried all her usual supplies for any general expedition. She didn't remember putting her armor on, yet it had all the signs that she'd put it on personally. Her chestplate even had padded rags inside, she could feel them from how they pressed her chest plate tightly against her once more. As if her prior thoughts of defaulting to those to make her armor functional again had been followed through with accuracy and care.

As for where she was, all she saw in front of her was a mousey looking short human girl, with the look of danger in her beady little brown eyes. "Who are you?" Selena asked. "Where am I? What is going on here?"

The human girl stared back, then spoke pure gibberish.

And Selena's world turned even further upside down than it had been since a year prior.